If it is possible, I'd like this image to accompany the article.
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Sherman Austin -- The “Anarchist Guevara”
Sherman Austin is an anarchist revolutionary who has been inspiring people, (mostly) young and old, to turn towards anarchist ideas and critical thinking. He seems to radiate an aura, much like Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara. You could call him the “Anarchist Guevara”. They both are widely popular and respected, and have been inspiring new generations of social revolutionaries. But don’t interpret this wrongly – Austin is very much different from Guevara. For one thing, Austin lives in an urban area in Los Angeles. Secondly, he has never picked up a gun and attempted to gain support for social revolution. He has played the same role, but differently. This has been through his website, Raise The Fist, and since then he has attracted plenty of attention from the authorities, and this has only helped his goal to promote anarchism.
Raise The Fist (raisethefist.com) is an anarchist independent media and direct action network providing an alternative form of radical media, opinion and information. Raise the Fist advocates a society free from sexism, homophobia, racism, class and state so the fullest measure of individual liberty and equality may prevail, at the same time fully supporting the principles of self-defense against repressive attacks by the political and class state.
Raise the Fist started in Los Angeles California, by Sherman Austin on President's Day in 2000. At the time the site was run off a home DSL line and a small computer network which Austin maintained. Over time, as the site developed, it started catching the attention of authorities who began monitoring the site daily.
It was this time when Austin started receiving quite a bit of recognition on the internet. As the website visitors rolled in, his unique style of anarchist website (focusing on practicality, rather than theoretical analysis), coupled with his anarchistic ideas and simplicity of words, attracted people in a Guevara-type way and popularity -- a new generation of anarchist revolutionaries. He identifies with the common working-class person, struggling against a system riddled with exploitation and various social diseases.
On August 27 2003, ‘zero376’ wrote on raisethefist.com:
“This goes to Sherman: Thank you very much. For with out you this website wouldn’t be here, without you my eyes would not have been fully open. I have learned more by coming to this site in two weeks then ever learning anywhere else. Mostly by people posting. I've learned how umm... stupid some people can be. I have also learned how smart people can be. I have learned about underground music like Dead Prez and Zearle, which are playing most of the time on my jukebox. Thank you for this site.”
This is what Austin set out to do, and he has done well:
“The most important thing to realise I suppose is that I made my voice heard. And that was my #1 objective when I decided to make the site.” (Sherman Austin, July 7 2003, Che-Lives.com). But it was here that his life started taking an ugly turn.
As the site began to gain more popularity, the FBI and Secret Service decided to shut it down by raiding Austin's home with 20 heavily armed FBI and Secret service agents under the U.S Patriot Act. A week later Austin was arrested by the FBI and spent 13 days in maximum-security federal jail until being released with prosecutors deciding not to file an indictment.
Immediately after Austin's release, he re-established the site back online despite the repression from authorities. Since then the site has grown and expanded into a network with chapters set up around the U.S, and internationally.
On January 24, 2002, federal law enforcement agents raided Austin's Sherman Oaks, California home and seized all his computers and other possessions. In late 2002, after months of legal limbo and harassment in between, federal prosecutors formally accused Austin of distributing information on explosives with the knowledge that some readers would use such info to commit a federal violent crime.
It became a federal 'crime' in 1997, when Senator Dianne Feinstein attached a blatantly unconstitutional amendment to a defence-spending bill. The offending web material on Raise The Fist was part of an Internet tract called the "Reclaim Guide" that Austin didn't even author -- but for which he had offered free hosting on his site.
On August 4th, U.S. District Court Judge Steven V. Wilson, a Reagan appointee, sentenced 20-year-old Southern California anarchist Sherman Austin to a year in federal prison, three years of probation and a $2,000 fine.
Austin is the first to admit that he ‘asked for it’ (the political oppression), and that he shouldn’t complain about what happened – but rather it should make him and others a lot stronger:
“Was I ‘asking for it’ by having that pathetic information on my site? Of course I was -- we are all ‘asking for it’ by attempting to stand up and speak out against this oppressive system. It's naive to think you can attempt to challenge this system and not have the state attack you for it. We are therefore ‘all asking for it’ when we do things like come to this forum and type away as we call for revolution and the overthrow of the capitalist system.
“The FBI and many other government agencies have been monitoring raisethefist.com long before the ‘bomb making’ information was even posted to it, and long before 9/11. These fools have been keeping a close eye on me and surveilling me for some very long time now. They simply used the U.S Patriot Act and the ‘bomb making information’ as an excuse to come pop me. If it wasn't the ‘bomb making information’ that did it, then it would have been something else. It was only a matter of time. I didn't author the information.
“Anyone who reads it and knows me personally will know after reading the first sentence that I didn't author any of it. Shit, I don't even know the first thing about explosives. All I did was link to the reclaim guide from the main page of the web site, which a small portion of dealt with ‘defense weapons’ and this was the page the ‘explosives information’ was on. Have any of you read it before? You can find mirrored copies on Google.Com. The person who wrote it pretty much ripped everything out of Steal This Book and the Anarchist Cookbook from what I hear. It's all common-knowledge bullshit from what I hear too.
“Anyway, no I wasn't surprised when they came to my house with loaded sub machine guns and bullet proof vests. I even told them I wasn't surprised and I knew exactly why they were there (my website of course, duh). As I previously said, this is a war. I'm not going to sit here and complain that I'm being persecuted and how my ‘freedom of speech’ is being ‘violated’. OF COURSE IT'S BEING VIOLATED! It's been violated long before raisethefist.com! Our rights have been violated for the past 400 and 500 years! We should by now be used to the state attacking us every time we attempt to initiate revolutionary ideology into action. Nonetheless I think by now we should be better prepared as well. I'm in no way surprised about all the bullshit I've been through because of that web site. With struggle always comes sacrifice…
“Anyway, what I am trying to say is expect political repression. Expect the state to try and smack you down. Don't complain if they do either. Instead become twice as strong every time they do and fight back twice as hard. If we are revolutionaries then we've got to act like it. We've got to exercise the revolutionary mentality; determination, discipline, self-defense, community, family, etc. Revolution is initiated by a course of direct action, meaning taking matters into our own hands. Revolutionary insurgency will always be met by violence and repression from the state. Always has and always will. The best thing we can do is to expect it, know it, study it, thus be better prepared for it, and fight back against it.” (Sherman Austin, July 7 2003, Che-Lives.com).
Sherman Austin has come a long way since that day in 2000 when he set-up Raise The Fist. It sure would have been one roller-coaster ride for him. Plenty of us could not even imagine going through what he has. I am quite sure that when serving out his sentence in a prison system riddled with crime (from both prisoners and authority), Austin will console himself with all of the good work he has done to try and help the world become a better place. Meanwhile, we must do all we can to continue Austin’s work while in his absence. Only we – not a few individuals – can bring about change for the better.
If it is possible, I'd like this image to accompany the article.
Article has been published in the Che-lives E-Zine: http://www.che-lives.com/home/modules.php?...order=0&thold=0
"The proletariat, when it seizes power [...] should and must at once undertake socialist measures in the most energetic, unyielding and unhesitant fashion, in other words, exercise a dictatorship, but a dictatorship of the CLASS, not of a party or of a clique -- dictatorship of the class, that means in the broadest possible form on the basis of the most active, unlimited participation of the mass of the people, of unlimited democracy." - Rosa Luxemburg
"An Rhein und Ruhr marschieren wir. / Für unsere Freiheit kämpfen wir! / Den Streifendienst, schlagt ihn entzwei! / Edelweiß marschiert – Achtung – die Straße frei!"
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I have been a member here before and posted like crazy with good interests. I will now restart. I was subject of police harassment today. i am tired of this goddmaned machine. Im tired of all this rage. Let the world collapse and democracy crumble.
<span style=\'color:blue\'>Hello LiQUiD-X and DranoK!</span>
I'm sorry, but I think comparing Mr. Austin to Che Guevara is a bit much, don't you think?
Part of me thinks that he was simply in the right place at the right time, and said what any self-respecting anarchist would.
Not saying that he isn't to be admired and looked up to, but he isn't necessarilly reached "hero" status in my books, yet.
Resist Much. Obey Little
-Walt Whitman
<span style=\'color:gray\'>"As through this life you travel, you meet some funny men
Some rob you with a six-gun, some with a fountain pen
As through this life you ramble, as through this life you roam
You'll never see an outlaw take a family from their home"
-from Pretty Boy Floyd
(W. Guthrie)</span>
Show me where in the article I mentioned the word "hero"?
Comrade Sherman published the article himself on the Raise the Fist newswire, so I think he appreciates the point I was trying to get across.
I think this is venturing a little too far.
Give him some time to prove himself. As for right now, he was in a certain place at a certain time for the most part
Resist Much. Obey Little
-Walt Whitman
<span style=\'color:gray\'>"As through this life you travel, you meet some funny men
Some rob you with a six-gun, some with a fountain pen
As through this life you ramble, as through this life you roam
You'll never see an outlaw take a family from their home"
-from Pretty Boy Floyd
(W. Guthrie)</span>
The only thing I compared between the two was their ability to have a fair amount of influence on people through their ideas and actions. I never, ever put any type of burden or expectation on Austin.
He needn't "prove" anything.
If this is posted elsewhere please forgive me. But the Zack de la Rocha Network has a message button for Sherman. I work as a moderator on the site and we're trying to help him as much as possible.
www.zdlr.net
